IN HIS KEEPING: CLAIMED

Sylvie’s hands shook from the cold as she walked to the end of the driveway trying to get some bars.  This sucked!  At some point she had to get herself a pair of gloves and a new frigging phone.

She’d gotten almost no sleep last night.  She’d gone back to bed after the cops left with the shotgun on one side of her and the rifle on the other.  But having someone try to break into your house was hardly conducive to getting a good night’s sleep.  She finally dozed off around 5:30 only to wake up again at 7.  She waited until 8 am to call Pearly and let him know she was here and what happened last night.  But for some reason, no one answered at either his home or his office.  Maybe he’d gone away early for the Thanksgiving holiday.  She couldn’t wait for him to get back.  She needed a new door now and decided to call the contractor directly.  By nightfall, she wanted to be able to lock up the house so there’d be no chance of anyone getting in.  The contractor was surprised to learn Sylvie was staying at the house.  She told him she’d had an attempted break-in last night and needed him to fix the back door today.  He apologized and told her the new steel-clad door they’d ordered hadn’t come in yet.  He said if he’d known she was going to be living there alone, he would have temporarily repaired the door, making sure no one could force their way in.  He promised he’d come right over and fix her up with an extra-thick exterior wooden door he’d salvaged from one of his jobs.  He told her he’d bolt new two-by-fours into the cement opening to form a sturdy frame, then cut the door to fit the opening, and use thicker than normal lumber for the interior and exterior molding.  After that he’d install the new, heavy-duty, pickproof lock he’d bought for the steel door and put deadbolts on both exterior doors and cut some dowels to keep the sliding windows from being tampered with.  He assured her that no one would get through that door after he was done.

True to his word, he and his men had arrived a little after 9:30 and set to work.

Trying to get her mind off what happened last night, Sylvie drank cup after cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would keep her awake.  She wanted to stay up until 4 pm and then go to bed, waking up at 9 so she’d be fully awake if the intruder returned.  She intended to be sitting on the couch, gun in hand, waiting for him.

The more she thought about it, the more Sylvie couldn’t buy into the cops’ theory of what happened.  They wanted to believe it was Connor.  She knew it wasn’t.  Sylvie wasn’t convinced the man had come here with the sole intent of hurting her like the officers had implied.  She still thought it could be a thief casing the joint or a peeping Tom, dropping by for a look-see.  She rationalized that it could just as likely be your average, garden-variety, would-be rapist or some pervert who’d seen her at Walmart’s and decided to follow her home.  Or was she in denial?  If it was someone like that…they’d think twice about coming back after seeing the gun and realizing she was armed.  But if it wasn’t?  What if it was the killer?  What then?

She could pack up the car and hightail it home.  Her father and brothers were there and they were an intimidating lot.  All former Marines, they were tough as nails when they had to be.  There was safety in numbers, she told herself.  But the frightening truth was, if Sylvie went home to Wyoming, she’d be safer, but she’d be putting her loved ones at risk.  Her nieces and nephews, her sister and sisters-in-law, Leona, and all the men in her family: her father, brothers, and brother-in law.  There was no way she could be sure they wouldn’t get hurt.  This bastard was a sick fuck.  A sadistic killer who got his rocks off torturing and stabbing women; but he was an arsonist as well, willing to set fire to a house and burn to death everyone inside.  He’d done it before; he could do it again.  She’d never forgive herself if any harm came to her family.  She had visions of the farm on fire, the house and barns burning, animals and people wailing and screaming in agony as the flames consumed them.  She couldn’t let that happen!  Going home was out of the question!  She wouldn’t be escaping the danger; she’d be bringing it home with her.  She couldn’t do that to the people she loved.  Didn’t want anyone to suffer because of her.  She had to protect them!  It wasn’t that she was particularly brave.  She wasn’t!  She was actually scared shitless!  It was just that this was her problem not theirs.  She’d have to figure out a way to deal with it, without involving them.

She could always return to New York City and her penthouse prison.  Sylvie would be safe there with her cadre of burly bodyguards as long as she stayed locked away and never ventured out again.  But she couldn’t live like that.  Of course if she did go back, she’d have to face Connor’s wrath.  She’d broken his precious rules.  He’d beat her ass then return to ignoring her and treating her like crap.  No, returning to the city was a bad idea!  Nothing had changed.  She still loved Connor, felt needy and wanting every time she thought of him.  Considering all that had happened between them, going back wouldn’t be very smart.  But then she hadn’t been smart in a long time.  Smart went out the window the first time she went to bed with Connor and felt him throbbing inside her.  That’s when her crotch started making decisions for her head.

Sylvie could face the killer head-on!  She might be a complete idiot, but she had the feeling she could end this horror show here and now if she’d just reach down and find her balls.  In her case…her ovaries.  The cops didn’t know where or who the killer was.  But Sylvie might.  If it wasn’t a peeper, pervert, or thief here last night, then it was a good bet it was the murderer.  Sylvie was plenty scared; but if she didn’t lose her cool or her nerve, she might be able to solve this and put an end to his killing spree once and for all.

And if she couldn’t locate her ovaries?  If she chickened out?  Well then, she could pack up the car and just go…somewhere…anywhere.  But there was no guarantee the killer wouldn’t follow her.  If she ran now, she’d be running the rest of her life.

Behaving like a lily-livered wimp wouldn’t cut it.  The stakes were too high.  No, it was best that she find her backbone and stay put.  Sylvie had advantages the other women didn’t.  She knew he was out there and coming for her.  And unlike the others, she was prepared.  She knew what he was capable of.  But the bloodthirsty creep had no idea what she was capable of!  Sylvie had a veritable arsenal at her disposal and she wouldn’t hesitate to use it.  The house was made of poured concrete.  It was covered in aluminum siding and had a metal roof.  He might try to burn her out, but the best he could hope for was to set fire to the wooden porches outside.  The front door was metal clad.  She didn’t think it would burn, and neither would the new windows with their vinyl covered metal frames.  Only the wood-framed picture window and the new back door were flammable.  The bastard would have to go some to burn the house down around her.  And if he tried, she had garden hoses hooked up on either side of the house to douse the flames.  Sylvie was smart.  Not that the other women weren’t; it was just that she was ready for him.  With luck and a whole shitload of brass, she might be able to stop this psycho in his tracks.  Be able to put an end to his grisly reign of death.  Or…she might just get herself killed.

Sylvie tried to remember what the intruder looked like.  It had been hard to tell since he’d been hunched over.  She couldn’t tell how tall he was or whether he was thin or well built.  Sylvie kept going back to the black bodysuit he was wearing.  It had covered him from head to toe.  Why the disguise?  If he was coming to kill her and he was a stranger, why had he bothered?  To frighten her?  She didn’t think so.  The only answer was because not only did he know her…she knew him!  That narrowed the list of suspects down.  It was either someone from Hudson Publishing or a high school classmate of Connor’s that she’d already met.  That sounded reasonable.  A worried look crossed her face.  Then again…it could just as easily be an attendee or honoree at one of the parties she’d attended.  Or someone rich and famous whom she never met, but who she’d recognize on sight.  Crap!  The list just got huge again.  It could be anybody.

If it was the killer who’d come to call last night, he thought he had the upper hand.  But he was seriously mistaken.  She knew he was lying in wait, hoping she’d let down her guard.  She might appear to be the perfect victim, short and skinny, and not very strong; but she was armed and knew how to shoot.  That leveled the playing field somewhat.  At least that gave her a fighting chance.  The trick was to lull the prick into thinking she was an easy target.  The more she thought about it, the more she realized she was more angry than scared.  She wanted to get this son of a bitch.  She wanted to see him locked away in a cage for the rest of his miserable life.

If she was going to set herself up as bait, she’d need help.  She’d tried to contact the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office to speak to the officers investigating Callie and Ariel’s murders.  She couldn’t remember their names, but was eventually connected to the right voicemail accounts and left messages.  She decided not to contact Sean McCoy from the New York State Police BCI.  She was afraid he’d call her brother Matt and alert him to what was happening.  She had visions of the Jenkins men descending on her from rural Wyoming, brandishing shotguns and rifles, ready to do battle on her behalf.  She couldn’t have that!

It had been difficult tracking down the New York City cops assigned to the case.  She must have gotten the detectives’ names wrong.  There was no Bernard Costanzo with the department.  She did track down three cops named Morretti: Angelo, Paul, and Richard.  She left messages on each of their voicemails telling them there’d been an attempted break-in at her house last night and that she thought it might be connected to the Ernestine Shaw murder investigation.  She also told them she’d discovered evidence of an earlier murder that they might want to look into.

She’d stumbled on an alumni site for the school Connor had attended.  Someone had set up a page in honor of their tenth reunion and had filled albums with pictures.  There were proms and formal school dances; baseball, basketball, and football games; plays, chorus, and band performances; pictures of school activities and various clubs; ice skating parties at Rockefeller Center; pool and beach parties in the Hamptons.  The photos were filled with happy, smiling faces.  All privileged children of the well-to-do, without a problem or care in the world.  One face kept appearing over and over again.  A beautiful colt of a girl with a wild mane of spiraling dark curls that hung nearly to her bottom.  She had dainty features, but enormous, doe-brown eyes.  Even in the pictures, they were mesmerizing.  She had a slender body and long, gorgeous legs.  After seeing pictures of her in a bikini, Sylvie could understand why the girl was so popular.  She had a lovely body.  There were pictures of her posing with Connor at a winter formal and Valentine’s Day dance.  She’d attended formals with both Drake and Nathan, and a Halloween dance with Sean.  She was in group pictures with every one of the ‘six,’ Justin and Jason Frommer, and Jameson as well.  The girl got around!  What had Jason told her about poaching each other’s girls in the old days?  Evidently these guys had passed girls around long before the bimbos came on the scene.

She was identified as Z. Posner.  Sylvie did a Google search and the only Z. Posner she could find was deceased.  Her name was Zahara Alexis Posner.  She had died a few days after her 17th birthday.  According to newspaper articles, she was stabbed numerous times by a mugger who attacked her in the underground parking garage of her family’s 5th Ave. building.  She had just gotten her driver’s license and had returned from visiting her grandparents in Scarsdale.  Her assailant was never caught.

But if that wasn’t enough to arouse Sylvie’s suspicion, the fact that a couple of days after the September 4th Labor Day beach party gang-rape victim was released from the hospital, the Posner’s summer home in the Hamptons burned to the ground…sure as hell did!  Luckily, the family had survived the fire by jumping off a second floor balcony.  But six weeks later their luck ran out when the girl was killed.  Coincidence?  No way!  Sylvie believed Zahara was the girl who’d been drugged and raped.  That the fire was an attempt to silence her.  And when that didn’t succeed, she was stabbed.  Sylvie was convinced that one of the boys in the pictures with Zahara had done it.  Someone Connor knew: a friend or acquaintance.

Damn it!  This was useless; she still couldn’t get any bars.  Maybe it was the thick cloud cover or the sudden cold snap; or maybe her phone was just a piece of shit!  All she knew was that she was freezing her ass off out here and accomplishing nothing.  She just wanted to check to see if Jameson had called or texted her.  He hadn’t emailed her anything since yesterday and she was wondering what was going on.  Did she still have a job with him or had Connor’s bullying tactics worked?  She figured he might have called or left a message.  But she had no way of knowing.  She felt like smashing the phone to smithereens.  But it was the only cell phone she had.  So, much as she’d like to, she had to keep the crappy thing in one piece and working a while longer.  She was too exhausted to do anything now.  She’d try again tomorrow.  Maybe drive down the road a ways till she was able to get a signal.  Right now she was so tired she was afraid to get behind the wheel.  She needed to get some sleep.  The workmen had left less than an hour ago so it would be blessedly quiet again after a morning filled with buzzing saws, grinding power tools, and endless pounding.  Sylvie glared at the phone, sighed, and made her way back to the house.